CALIFON — A two-year literacy improvement initiative at Califon Public School has education consultants from Rutgers working with teachers across the curriculum to boost reading and comprehension.

Expanding Literacy Bridges — The Califon-Rutgers Connection began on Dec. 11 and will continue through April 2014. It brings two consultants to the school once a week to mentor teachers and to model what are considered “best practices” in literacy development.

Superintendent Debra Sheard initiated the effort after examining the results of students’ standardized tests. “Students were having difficulty in comprehension and analyzing texts,” Sheard said.

When Sheard joined the district in September she was already familiar with the work of Rutgers Professor Lesley Morrow, who runs the Center for Literacy Development and created the program.

According to Ken Kunz and Maureen Hall, who work under Morrow at the center, they are bringing to Califon teachers ways to measure reading levels in a more dynamic way than do standardized tests, which provide a once-a-year snapshot of achievement.

In particular, the strategies enable teachers to assess the school’s 143 students individually and on the fly so they can challenge each child at his or her own level to foster achievement through “differentiated instruction.”

“It’s not just that they’re using assessment and designing interventions,” said Kunz. “It’s more of a mentoring situation.”

As a result, Hall said, teachers are adopting literacy development “best practices” proven by research.

Kunz and Hall meet with all the teachers, regardless of grade level or subject area.
“Every teacher is a teacher of reading,” said Hall. “Literacy is the common thread that runs through all curricula.”

That’s why there’s a “word wall” in every room — including the cafeteria and gym — that has vocabulary words that students haven’t incorporated into their work, speech or writing yet. Many are pegged to subject areas. So in the math classroom, for example, the word wall would contain the word “parallelogram.”

The district will spend $15,000 for the effort this year and next. There are plans to hire a part-time literacy coach to work along with Hall and Kunz next year.

According to Sheard, Califon is the only district in Hunterdon working with Morrow to boost student literacy. Forging partnerships with higher education is a recommendation of the state’s new common core standards, she said.